The True Celebrities of Today - Kiddies!

Youth too ignorant to vote
By Mitchell Toy
July 06, 2007 01:00am

CAN we really trust young people to vote?

According to the youth electoral organisation, Rock the Vote, one in five young people was not enrolled at the last election. A Federal Government electoral report said civic education among young people was sorely needed.

To see how very little our younger generation knows about politics, just look at fashion. The truth is, our youth have been wearing blood on their clothes for decades. Argentine revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara, has been a T-shirt hero since the 1960s in spite of sending hundreds to the firing squad in Cuba.

Instead of damning the self-proclaimed killer, '60s youth glorified him. And plenty of young people are still falling for Guevara in spite of knowing next to nothing about the revolutionary. Che-emblazoned merchandise is still being sold in stores and on specialist websites.

You would think teenagers and would-be revolutionaries would see the irony of paying for Marxist garb through Paypal or American Express. It is hard to imagine Guevara wanting to be packaged and printed on keychains, belt buckles, backpacks, baseball caps and wallets bought by Western youth.

Photographer Alberto Korda never got a cent in royalties for the famous snap that adorned the bodies of countless Left-leaning students. Young people couldn't care less about realpolitik. But rebellion against capitalism is still the rage.

Howard and Rudd want to capture the young vote, but they are likely to vote for someone on Big Brother rather than the Prime Minister or the Opposition Leader.

It is about time ill-informed youth became a more interested in our functioning democracy, or it might not be functioning for much longer.

- Mitchell Toy is a young university student